Best Shade Loving Plants
Beth Chatto believes you can transform a shady spot with easy-care planting that includes foliage and flowers for a brighter Spring garden. Illuminate a shady spot under trees with a range of flowers and plants.
Beth Chatto has an extensive list of plants for shady areas for all year round interest
Top Ten Spring Shade Lovers
- Honesty purple or white forms are good when in flower but also produce airy white seedheads
- Forget-me-nots are flowering all over my back garden at the moment from self-sown plants.
- Bluebells can be white as well as blue or even pink. They normally grow in shady woodland and will flower without sun. They also spread quite quickly particularly the thuggish Spanish variety. Do not take wild bulbs from there natural habitat.
- Hellebore the Lenten Rose is another shade loving plant that is happy under trees although the flowers tend to hang down and be hard to inspect.
- Tulips can brighten the darkest spot. I plant them in pots so I can move them to where they will have the greatest impact. I can then replace them with other plants later in the year.